


In Your Room

by badluckvixen13 (alteringviews)



Series: Media Series [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger Management, Bad Parenting, Black Hermione Granger, Eating Disorders, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-24 22:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19733206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringviews/pseuds/badluckvixen13
Summary: You know every part of meI let you in, I let you seeAll the dark and every color of my roomLet me do that for youAnd tell me all about your pastWhy you painted those walls blackBaby, it's all right you're safe in here with meOpen up so I can see-- In Your Room by HalestormHarry and Hermione have been dating for several years now and friends for much longer. As far as Hermione can tell, he knows just about everything there is to know about her minus a few dark days, yet the mystery of his music room, why he seems able to lose himself in there for hours at a time, and his own dark and haunted places are an untraversable distance between them.All she wants him to do is to let her in his room the way she struggles to let him in every day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Your Room](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/496873) by Halestorm. 



He was doing it again, in his music room not coming out for even dinner, let alone to talk to her. The sound of the guitar playing a lighter sound than usual drifted down the stairs. She still wasn’t sure what really triggered it, and she was starting to think she never would. She hated these moments when all she could hear was a long hallway of doors slamming shut and the distance between them seemed untraversable. It was worse than when they put a full person's worth of space between them in bed, worse than when she could only lock herself in the library or refused to wear anything more fitted than her old sweatpants from university.

It was crazy. 

They’d known each other for so long, longer than every married couple they knew had been together, yet there were so many things that had remained unspoken between them. 

There was any number of moments in her history that she had never shared with him from her first disaster of a sexual encounter to the last. Those moments crept in and out of their lives when they were in their bedroom or any time that Harry decided that he wanted to look at her for as long as she let him.

The time before Sirius adopted him was still just a glossed-over mess of half-truths and silent screaming in the dark. They felt like kilometers of despicable red tape around them keeping her from any other meaningful progress in their relationship, but she had decided to let it be and waited until he was ready to talk.

She hated not knowing and hated more that he didn’t want her to know. 

He knew everything about her from the way she fancied herself a fairy princess when she was five, granting wishes with her magic wand, to the boy she punched in her second year of university because he was being an arsehole. 

He knew how to get her million and four kilometers per second mind to a tire-screeching halt. He knew when she was frazzled, could tell when she was about to lose herself in her next project and forget to eat. 

He knew how much she’d struggled with her insecurities, knew how to get her to eat when she couldn’t think about anything but how much bigger she was now and how small she once had been. 

He knew about her relationship, or lack thereof, with her parents, the Grangers, their harsh words and need to make everything seem okay at any cost. 

_Smile, Hermione. We raised you to be polite._

_An intelligent girl will lose all credibility if she is not perceived so at all times._

_Don't be a child. You have too many faults to correct and so little time to do it._

_Straighten your hair, Hermione._

_Who did you get such bad hair from? Your sister doesn't have hair like this._

_She got the fat gene from your side, William._

_Such a plain face, you should read more to make up for it._

Hermione stopped and breath at the sudden onslaught of her mother's words. Gods, she hated her voice the shrew-ish tone of her brittle, proper, British alto. She hated nearly every word that had ever come out of her mother and grandmother's mouth as they raked hot, gaping, bleeding wounds through her psyche.

_Seems like passed on these horrible genes to you. Better to start early, dear. Here's a bowl of berries._

She shut her eyes again and squeezed her hands shut to ground herself against the memory and the shame of knowing that just that moment had impacted her life so profoundly.

It had taken years of Harry sneaking around eating berries out of her sight for her to tell herself that she was being ridiculous and force herself to eat berries with breakfast and not go running to the bathroom from nausea.

The scent of Equal and Sweet n' Low in white tea, however, still made her sick enough that she had to be excused from the most Weasley family functions while Molly was on one of her diet kicks. The scent of relaxer and flat-iron burned hair made her dizzy. The sight of Multi-Intense and prenatal vitamins still made her nauseous, but none of that was unknown to Harry.

He knew everything about her it seemed, yet she couldn’t even get him to tell her what the symbols on his calendar meant and why she could never go in his music room. When she knocked, he always came out to her even if she just wanted to confirm what he wanted to order for dinner.

_Probably because you’re fat._

She ignored that thought, stubbornly, and resumed chopping an onion for dinner. As the nutritional label level amount of detail scrolled through her mind and her stomach churned at how many calories it would add, she kept her promise and followed the recipe he'd taught her.

It was his favorite recipe, one that Sirius and Remus had learned from his father, James. James had learned it from his mother, and it had roots all the way back to the Potter family house in Patna if she was right. 

_Don't sabotage everything we've done for you._

_How do you think this will look? You ending up in the hospital for malnutrition of all things? You’ll look incompetent!_

_Stupid girl, you stopped taking your vitamins, didn't you?_

Her hands shook as she swept the chopped onions together with the flat of her knife and began to transfer them to the pot. The oil sizzled and the scent filled the air drawing her out of one memory and pushing her into another faster than she could handle.

Her brother had come home from his first year Christmas in college. There had been more food on the table to welcome him and his friends over than she ever remembered there being other than at family get-togethers. She had been in the library hiding, reading her books and pretending that David only had one elder sister, Juliette. What they told his friends about her, she didn't know. The scent of onion drifting up the stairs made her stand and go to the door only to find it locked. She tried the door and pulled it, twisting the knob as panic set in and soon heard her father's voice hissing through the door.

 _Keep quiet,_ he’d said, _They've arrived, and I won't have you embarrassing your brother. We'll let you out when they're gone._

She’d spent the whole night and most of the next day locked in the library and had only been let out when her brother went out to meet up with friends. When her father opened the door, he hustled her through getting cleaned up, packing her things, and shoved her into a taxi for her winter internship. She had barely been able to use the bathroom. She remembered him calling to say stay away from the house until her brother and his friends were gone and spending the rest of the break in a hotel far cheaper than they would have deemed acceptable if they'd done anything but transfer what they figured was an acceptable amount into her account for lodging.

She'd used the excess to buy herself a Christmas gift, get around, and buy at least one meal a day. It had been the only break she'd come home and she never let her self think that commuting from there Granger house would ever be better than staying in a hotel again. 

Every year after, she did anything she had to not to come home and face them until, eventually, she didn’t even bother to tell them that she wasn’t coming and just expected them to know. 

_Not that they care._

She wiped her face and ignores her burning eyes as a small gasp of shame came with the next memory. 

The next time she saw her brother was at his graduation party though she had graduated at the top of her class two years before, said her valedictorian speech to a crowd full of people, received the resounding standing ovation, but hadn’t seen one face there to celebrate her personally except for the few friends she’d managed to cultivate in school. 

Her brother had seen her around her father's body at the door as he hissed at her to go away and plucked the gift she’d bought for him from her hands. Maybe there had been a bit of shock in his face, maybe it was a sneer, she couldn’t even remember any longer as she held his graduation gift in her hands and stood on the front porch.

_Why are you here? Don't come back until we tell you._

Her father had taken the gift, closed the door in her face and through the door, he heard announce that a courier had arrived with a gift for him. A brand new watch she’d thought would fit him as a young new doctor, a watch her parents couldn’t afford to buy him. Looking back, she still couldn’t puzzle out why she thought it was a good idea. 

What good was showing them how well she’d done for herself if they still hated her very existence beyond what it could do for them. 

_You could have just gone to work for them._

She shook her head and corrected herself. It would have never worked out. She would have died in their office and they would have told the world that she’d been kidnapped on a business trip never to be seen again. 

Harry knew a lot, but there were even some parts of her battered and bruised soul that she couldn't bear to him. Until she could, she wouldn’t push him, wouldn’t badger him, she’d wait until he was ready. She owed him that much. He had the patience of a saint dealing with her, he deserved the same from her. 

After all, the things he knew, the darker parts of her that he’d encountered, hadn’t come out because she’d been brave enough to tell him. He’d figured it out at her hospital bedside when he’d come back from a trip their second year out of university. 

She’d collapsed in her apartment after her doctoral defense and her neighbor, Luna, who’d come around to bring her celebratory pudding had called the hospital. She and Harry sat at her bedside and listened to what the doctor had to say about her condition as he was the only person who had answered the first time the hospital called.

Hermione woke up to them both holding her hands and telling her that they were there for her. It had felt something like support until her parents showed up the way they usually did when she needed understanding: too busy and too concerned about their image to say anything but the harshest things that came to mind. 

_Do you enjoy making a fool of yourself? What will your doctoral board think of this, you stupid girl?_

Harry and Luna had been shocked into silence and Hermione begged them to leave while she dealt with them. The words had cut deep, the ridicule that came with her silence cut deeper, but it was the knowledge that they could both hear the conversation right outside the door.

She remained in the hospital for two weeks and Harry had all but moved into her apartment with her to keep an eye on her until her lease was over and he could move her into his place. He'd been so patient, just holding her hand after they left hissing about how best to cover it up without a word of kindness to her. He'd held the millions of questions she knew he had until she was already breaking down in his spare room with a book in her arms that held no comfort.

The incident had brought her and Luna closer who had struggled for years alone with her demons. She’d gotten Hermione into the same program she went through and it was one of the best decision Hermione had ever made. Harry hadn’t said a word then, hadn’t done anything more than be there for her in ways she had never acknowledge she needed. 

Standing in front of the door and keeping her in the house when he knew she hadn’t eaten anything before working out, prying her out of her library and her memories, taking her out no matter what she could force herself to wear, looking at her as if she was the most beautiful soul he’d ever seen-- just being Harry. 

_I love you, Hermione._

_You’re so beautiful._

_You’re brilliant._

The notes of his guitar came drifting down the stairs as soothing as they always were as she finished making the curry she’d planned for dinner. It smelled great, but it turned her stomach, made her mouth dry and sent her mind spinning. 

Rather than deal with it, she put the cover over the pot and turned everything off before heading to the library on the second floor of their home. With her mind and stomach this unsettled, she needed a minute or she'd just throw it all up and need to lie down. She set a timer on her phone for an hour and found a book, a thick adventure story she hadn’t started yet, got comfortable on her couch and started to read. An hour would be enough, just enough to calm herself and do exactly as she promised.


	2. Chapter 2

“‘Mione, did you eat?”

She heard the question from far away as his hand stroked her hair, drawing her attention from the swinging swords and battle cries of the main character struggling against her fate. She had fallen hard and fast into the world of the Alduran, the kingdom of Morinor and the main character who had come from nothing and nearly lost everything trying to save her little brother. She wanted to know if she would get that regalia or just be lost to the pits like every other knight of Morinor.

His brilliant green gaze in his handsome brown face met her gaze and held it hostage as she tried to puzzle out what he was talking about. His indigo hair was as unruly as always and slightly wet from the shower. He smelled warm, fresh, male and distinctly Harry James Potter. 

“‘Mione, did you eat?”

Of course, she hadn’t eaten. She was reading. Who had time to eat when there were books to read? She'd given herself an hour to ease her stomach. It hadn't been an hour yet, had it? She hadn’t made it that far into the book that an hour had passed, she was sure. There were whole worlds to escape to that were a great deal more forgiving, fairer, and more palatable than the one she lived in.

Surely, she had five more minutes? Had her alarm gone off?

“What?”

Harry stood up straight before confiscating her book and setting it aside with her bookmark tucked inside before taking her hand and pulling her downstairs to where the scent of curry was fading in the air. 

“Sit,” he said, pulling a chair out for her. She sat down and watched him warm up food. 

“We talked about this,” Harry said, “When did you eat lunch?”

“I don’t remember,” she said, and he sighed. 

“Did you have a rough day?”

The words come out faster than she can swallow them, “Did you?”

Harry’s shoulders tensed before turning around, “What?”

She swore she wouldn't push, but apparently, her still frazzled mind and turning stomach wasn't listening. It was a distraction, like debating with Draco Malfoy back in school, a distraction from the fact that she wasn't eating or sleeping. She was intelligent and everyone had to know that even if she was just an empty shell.

No one could suspect what was going on.

She remembered wondering what sort of emptiness Draco was distracting himself from. She found out after running into him in a coffee shop in Cardiff that his father had been an _abusive sadistic waste of DNA_. Until the day a few days before they had run into each other, when Lucius and his wife were sent to jail for life for charges Draco didn't share, Draco had never known peace.

_It's over and all I can do is pick up the pieces…. What about you, Granger?_

She remembered swapping contact information with him and the friendship they'd developed sense even though he was that arsehole she punched in college, but she still couldn't remember her reply on that day.

She probably didn't have one.

“Did you have a rough day?” she asked, “I remember cooking, and you came home. You said hi and headed straight upstairs. I thought you were going to shower until the door closed.”

Harry’s jaw tensed, “It’s nothing.”

“You always say that, " her intellect stepping forward and shoving her body's feedback away, “Why… won’t you just let me in?”

Harry turned from her, “What do you mean, ‘Mione? You know me better than anyone.”

“Except what triggers you to go to your music room,” Hermione sat back, “And that seems to be more frequent than me not eating these days.”

_Not that I can’t stand to skip a few meals._

“No, you can’t,” Harry said. 

She wasn’t sure if she’d actually said that out loud or if he just _knew_ she was thinking it. That was the thing about their relationship and she wanted to be that for him. She wanted to meet and befriend his demons so she could always tell him they were wrong.

“My point stands.”

Harry sighed, “It’s nothing.”

“How long were you up there?”

“An hour?”

She checked her watch and realized she'd more than just missed her alarm, “You get home closer to five than six. It’s almost midnight.”

He served them and came over to the table with a sigh to set the plates down before returning to get them both a glass of water.

_Gods, Hermione, shut up. You said you wouldn’t do this!_

When he finally settled, he stared at her with those frustrating eyes until she began to eat.

"Is it that hard to trust me?"

Harry looked up, "It has nothing to do with that. Can't we drop it?"

Hermione set her fork down as the curry flavor turned to ash in her mouth and she'd heard in his voice permission to not follow through with her promise.

Harry was annoyed with her and in that annoyance, they couldn't share a meal. He would forget that she had barely eaten a bite and she'd be safe from eating for as long as he felt like they couldn't talk.

_Perfect._

Something like panic went through her, she didn't like the inevitable end of that reasoning but the brakes on her body and mind seemed broken.

Harry looked up at her, and finally, she pushed away from the table.

"I'm going for a walk."

_Oh my God, help me!_

His eyes widened and he stood up it seemed in slow motion while Hermione's body was in hyperdrive, "Hermione, wait."

She couldn't hear him, sliding into her tennis shoes and taking off down the street on the familiar path. 

The emptiness made her feel light and untouchable, the familiar high was coming faster than she could manage to fight for clarity.

The world passed by in a haze as her body ran and her mind screamed.

_Go back, Hermione!_

_Don't be stupid, Hermione!_

_Hermione, listen!_

_Hermione!_

Harry was fit, so if he wanted, he could probably catch her, but maybe he wouldn't.

_Because you're not good enough. You promised to be better. Can't even trust you to eat, why would he trust you? Your mother was right, you'll never keep anyone like this._

She ran faster and ass their neighborhood fell away to the park, her demon's voice changed.

 _I told you to eat less,_ her mother's voice was too loud, so she ran faster, her feet hitting the pavement so quickly it sounded like a heartbeat and drowned out everything at last.

When she grew too tired to go any further, she walked to the park beside the river and slumped onto a swing wiping her face and sucking in shaky breath after breath.

She was no good to anyone the way she was. She shouldn't have dragged Harry into this. She was being unreasonable. She shouldn't have asked.

She shouldn't have run from the question, and she shouldn’t have gone against her word just to hide her struggle again.

She was…

She was overwhelmed and empty sobbing at a park in the middle of the night like it was the safest thing in the world like an idiot because she didn't have any control over herself.

She'd been working so hard and it felt like it was for nothing.

 _I won't eat again until we talk_.

She pressed her hand to her ears and sobbed, "That's stupid. He wouldn't-- he wouldn’t."

_He'll talk to me if he cares._

"Don't be irresponsible. This isn't his problem. It's yours."

_Keep running._

"I can't."

All the degrees in the world didn't stop her from being this sort of irrational. She couldn’t do this. She had to keep going but her leg wouldn’t listen. The pain and emptiness were settling in hard and familiar. It was almost a blissful feeling if it didn’t hurt so much.

 _Oh God, I’m going to throw up,_ she thought and her face burned. _Was it always like this?_

What would her mother say about that? 

_Probably that you couldn’t do it enough to get rid of your ass,_ Hermione let out a pitiful sound that could have been a laugh. 

“And she’d be right,” Hermione breathed, trying to keep her stomach from cramping and throwing up whatever little she’d managed to eat and bile.

Nothing tasted good when it came back up, she knew that from throwing up as a child and she never wanted to throw up again if she could help it. It was such a waste. She could have just not eaten anything.

She should’ve just not--

When did she last--

_I don’t know. I don’t know. Shut up! I don’t know!_

"What's the matter, love? Your boyfriend playing around on you?"

The question made her gasp and realize that while she was fighting her demons, men with potentially ill intentions had been approaching her. They, she knew, didn’t see what she saw in the mirror. They saw tight leggings over wide hips and strong thighs, a round ass that even when she was at her lightest hadn’t gone anywhere. They saw large breasts supported by a good bra. 

They saw a woman in the middle of the night maybe on the edge of sobbing and talking to herself.

"We could show you a good time."

Slowly, she looked up wondering what she expected running out of the house without her phone in the middle of the night. It was almost like a scene out of a book except she wasn't a character worth saving. She didn't contribute anything in the plot.

She'd die, and somehow, she was secretly okay with that.

_Stop it, Hermione, you promised._

_Nothing to be done._

_Nothing left to do._

_You just screwed everything up like always._

"Harry, " she whispered a soft scared desperate sound that just made her cry more.

She’s run out on Harry. Run away because she was too much of a coward to talk to him. What right did she have to ask him about his secrets when she could barely drag her own along?

_You fucking deserve it, you stupid slag._

She snorted. A creative insult but inaccurate, she should have considered it a victory of her therapy that she could at least focus enough to know that. How long had it been since she would have just let it stand and rattle around in her breaking and splintering her inner supports until she crumbled?

_I’m not a slag._

They advanced on her, chuckling and talking between themselves she could only think that she deserved it and Harry wasn't coming.

_And I’m not stupid._

What could he do against several dangerous men who were probably seasoned members of the underground? Whatever was to come for being unreasonable, for being stupid, dor not being good enough, she would just have to accept it or figure a way out.

_I’m not weak._

"I'm flattered, " she said standing, "But I just came out for a bit of a run. I--"

One of them cut her off with a sleazy grin, "Come now, love, you don't want to have a good time with us?"

"How very rude after coming on to our turf at this time of night."

"Be honest, you were hoping for it."

One of them grabbed her arm and pulled her up against him before she could react. 

“Don’t--”

The sound was deafening reverberating through the air and making her wince in recognition. She’d caused that sound once before: the crack of someone's jaw being broken. Hermione turned and saw the unmistakable figure of Harry Potter panting his eyes practically glowing in street lamp light across the way and the other man sprawled across the ground bleeding from his nose and a bruise blossoming on his face. She swore she saw bloody teeth not too far away from where he’d landed hear the low stone wall that fenced in the playground.

"Who the fuck--"

Faster than she'd ever seen him move, Harry appeared just in front of the man behind her and swung. He narrowly dodged as another man appeared in the entrance to the playground. Hermione tore away from her initial assailant and rushed forward to thwart him, but Harry swung his body around and uppercut the third man in his gut. The man's eyes bulged as he threw up whatever was in his soul and crumpled to the ground as Harry turned and caught the man that had grabbed her in the face with his knee.

"What's going on over there?" Someone asked from what felt like too far away to matter.

Another man leaped out of the darkness and tackled Harry to the ground. They rolled as a flashlight beamed into the playground from behind them and up the hill. She turned around and yelled up to the two officers.

"Officers,--"

Harry pinned another man she hadn't seen as the one he’d been tumbling with lay sprawled on the ground groaning with a bloodied face. Harry punched him with a viciousness that rung through the air and made Hermione’s stomach churn. His eyes seemed possessed as he punched the man's face in. Another small group of men appeared running towards them from a little way down the street, hopping over the low stone wall. She heard the officer running back to his squad car to call for backup.

Before the new group of men reached Harry, he was on his feet and charging at them landing blows with frightening accuracy and viciousness. All she heard was the snap of bones and the cries of pain in the night air beyond her heart thudding in her ears as she watched. Her mind was silent, unable to keep up with the change in events. 

Her Harry Potter didn’t fight. The Harry she knew had hands too gentle from pediatric care to fight. 

So who was the man tearing through this group of men as if he’d fought all his life?

Eventually, officers scrambled down to the scene, but it was too late to stop the fight. Harry let the last man fall back from a vicious elbow to the face and stood still panting and scanning the area for any new threats. One of them must have had a knife because there was a bloody cut in Harry’s shirt that now stuck to his skin with the wound and sweat.

“Put your hands up now!”

“Bloody hell,” one of them curse as Harry got on his knees and complied placing his hands behind his head as Hermione lifted her hands. 

“Are you alright ma’am?”

“Y-Yes… I’m fine. My boyfriend--”

“Get up,” another officer said lifting Harry in handcuffs to his feet.

“Wait--”

“Don’t worry, ma’am you’re safe now--”

“But--”

“Officer Tanning, could you get this young woman’s statement and take her home?”

“Wait--”

“Come on, love--”

“Listen to me!” She yelled, eyes bulging and glaring hard lines as Harry was stuffed into a police car and carted away. “My _boyfriend_ is the one you just put in a car and took. These men on the ground attacked me! He was just defending me.”

They blinked looked at one another and grimaced, “Your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Against… eleven men?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Office Tanning, if you could bring her along with us to the police station. This is going to be a long night.”


	3. Chapter 3

It took several hours to pull the CCTV footage at Hermione’s insistence, but Harry had been placed in a holding cell until they could verify her statement. They released Harry and Hermione in the early hours of the morning assured that they'd get likely similar statements from the men all in the hospital with various injuries and had an officer drive them home. He remained quiet beside her and she wasn’t sure what to say. She was sure that she gave the officer directions to their home and answered his questions when Harry couldn’t, but the substance of those answers was lost on her.

When they arrived home, they sat in the car in silence for a solid minute half listening to the officer and mostly dreading truly being alone to talk before Hermione got out of the car. Harry followed suit. The officer drove off as Hermione popped the trunk to their car and grabbed a rag towel out of the trunk to wrap Harry's bleeding hands until she could treat them properly. He lifted the towel wordlessly from her hands and wrapped them tightly like boxing gloves. She stepped back and watched for any dizziness as they walked into the house, but he was perfectly coordinated, and a lot calmer than she was pretending to be even as the cloth around his knuckles began to turn red and she realized that the cut through his shirt was still bleeding.

He sat on the couch as she went to get the first aid kit and the first thing she realized trying to treat him was that their plates hadn't been moved from the table, and Harry wouldn't look at her. His eyes were hard, glinting emeralds, glaring at his hands. She had never noticed how much softer his glasses made his eyes seem. When they were alone and pushing each other toward oblivion, his eyes were so full of raw power that she had never expected of her almost shy Harry who hadn't thought she'd agree to date him after nearly three years of being friends.

She sat on the floor and reached for his hands, but he flinched away from her touch. She waited three breaths before trying again and getting the same response.

"Should I… leave this here for you?" She ventured, “What about your back?”

He remained quiet for a moment. The room felt almost oppressive with his silence, but she kept her mouth closed and waited. If she had just been patient none of this would have happened.

He wouldn't have had to do whatever happened.

What if he was afraid?

What if he thought she was looking for trouble?

What if they broke up because of this?

Even if they weren't dating she wanted Harry in her life, couldn't imagine it without him in some capacity given how close they were and had become even before dating.

"You're not going to ask?"

His voice startled her out her own spiraling thoughts, "You may have saved my life if not my sanity last night, Harry. I don't think I have anything to say but thank you."

He glanced at her, swallowed and offered her the hand that had soaked through the towel completely. 

"Please? I'm… rubbish at bandaging anything."

_ How do you know that? _

She didn't ask but cleaned his knuckles and blew on them to try and take away the sting before rubbing them with ointment and bandaging them. Looking at his hands closely, she realized that he didn't have calluses on his fingertips, the way she would expect of a guitarist, but on his knuckles that had been torn open during the fight.

She treated his other hand just as carefully and got his shirt off to treat his back. It wasn’t deep enough for anything more than a large bandage thankfully. When she was satisfied, she closed the box and silence filled the space between them again.

"Let's go to--"

"My Uncle Vernon died, " he cut in.

Hermione lowered her gaze thoughtfully. She'd heard of Vernon in passing, his aunt Petunia, his cousin Dudley. She heard about them in relation to the trust fund that his godfather Sirius presided over since his parent's murder and how hard a fight it had been to wrestle Harry into his custody when he was already sixteen years old due to whatever connections Vernon and Petunia had in the legal system.

"I see."

"She called me, " Harry said, "My aunt did and asked me to help with the funeral."

Hermione bit the inside her cheek to keep quiet as his hand flexed in hers.

"I told her to go to hell."

Hermione sighed in relief, "Hallelujah."

He snorted, "You sound like Sirius."

"I'm sure Sirius had a lot more to say."

"He did, but he didn’t say it. I would tell it was killing him to hold his piece at lunch with me."

"How…” she shook her head, “What can I do?"

"I trust you, Hermione, more than anyone. I just didn't want you to have to see me like that."

He swallowed and looked at her, "Come with me?"

"Anywhere."

Harry stood up and slowly they walked up the stairs to the loft Harry had turned into his music room as she liked to call it. He hesitated at the door and she squeezed his hand.

"If you aren't ready, if you're never ready that's okay, " she said, "I was being unreasonable and pushy. You've been so--"

He kissed her, swallowing all of her doubts as he made her breathless.

He pulled back with a wry smile.

"Patient?" He said, "We've known each other for near enough to forever. If either of us has been patient, it's you."

Harry swallowed, "I just… wished this had come as more than a reaction to Vernon… he doesn't--they don't deserve any part of my current or my future."

Hermione's heart trebled hearing those words. She'd begged him to come to sessions who her because she was afraid she'd bolt. How could she have known he was benefitting so much from them?

With a deep breath, he opened the door and led her inside.

She expected recording equipment, a guitar or something, but the room was practically spare save for the punching bag mounted to the ceiling, the yoga mat on the other side, the speakers mounted on the walls, and the small shower set up in the corner. She noticed the soundproofing everywhere except the door.

He closed the door behind her and seemed to wait for her to look around, but she looked at him.

He sighed, "Sorry, if this is a disappointment to the hot musician boyfriend vibe I gave off."

"Quickly turning into hot, cage fighter vibe."

He flushed and drew his hand through his hair, "Care for a tour?"

"I'd love to, " she said.

He walked her around the small space arm in arm.

"Remus gave me this punching bag after I blacked out at school, " Harry said, "He and Sirius spent hours in the basement teaching me how to box and talking to me."

Harry sighed and explained that he had been bullied all throughout his childhood in school because he was a foster kid in his aunt's house. Dudley, his cousin, was the main instigator at school. He was in a year above and his friends tormented Harry nearly every day growing up.

No matter came home with a black eye it was Harry's fault and his caseworker was a friend of Vernon's.

"He was content to look the other because of the inheritance my aunt vied for on my behalf… luckily, my parents were smart enough to already have a will in place."

When Sirius had finally gotten a chance to see Harry, finally gotten the chance to open a custody case, Harry had already gone through years of abuse that had turned him at once hyper-cautious and furious.

"I put someone through a window in school, but I couldn't go remember why. Sirius put me in counseling, the judge let me off as self-defense and I've had a room like this ever since."

Hermione squeezed his hand as he sat down on the floor.

"The guitar you hear is from a random yoga playlist. It helps if it's not too bad."

"I would have never guessed you have anger issues."

"My psychiatrist thinks it's more like PTSD," he said, "She tells me all the time that I don't seem like an angry person."

He didn't, but Hermione supposed that was a marker of his self-control and his reaction to being hurt by the people who were supposed to take care of him.

She sat down beside him and smiled, "So…this is your room?"

He smiled, "Yeah… What do you think?"

"That you're still my Harry."

He flushed and ducked his head.

"And it makes sense why you're so fit. How much do you train?"

"A lot."

"Take me to your gym, hm?"

He grimaced, "Not sure about that."

"You think I can't handle it?"

"I think you'll find something better there."

Hermione laughed, "Sorry, babe. You're stuck with me… who else is going to beat up would be muggers for me in the middle of the night  _ and  _ earn enough that we have room for all of my books?"

Harry seemed stunned for a moment and part of her wondered if the joke hit too close to home before he burst into warm laughter and leaped at her tickling her viciously so she screamed and writhed around in his hold.

"I see what you care about! All this has been about a home for your books!"

"You know you'll always be my third love!"

"A cat and books beat me, do they? It could have at least been you!"

She shrieked, her eyes burning with tears and her stomach aching from laughter as he tugged her close and pouted.

"Outdone by a cat."

She giggled, "Maybe you'll get pushed to number four… if things keep on the way they have been."

Harry smiled, "I'd be okay with that. More than okay."

"I demand at least the number four slot."

Harry kissed her cheek, "At the lowest."

"Can we stay here for a little while?" Hermione asked, "At least until you're ready."

“Yeah,” he said after a moment, his voice thick, “Sounds good.”

He kissed her head and hummed a song that she vaguely recognized.

_ Tell me that you love me, oh, let me drive your car _

_ We can sit to morning light, just countin' every star _

“I’d rather sleep in our rather comfortable bed,” Hermione said and Harry laughed loud, free, and happier than she was sure that she’d ever heard.


End file.
